Team OKRs in Action

Common Pitfalls of OKRs in Practice

OKRs are everywhere. From startups to large enterprises, they show up in kickoff meetings, dashboards, and strategy documents.

But in many organizations I’ve worked with, OKRs rarely change how teams actually work—or deliver.

Too often, goals are written down but fail to drive action. Why? Because they’re imposed from above. Leadership defines objectives and key results, hands them down, and expects teams to execute.

Sometimes these OKRs are nothing more than KPIs with new labels. Other times, they’re vague slogans—disconnected from real work. Either way, the result is the same: teams don’t own the goals. Without ownership, they comply at best—or disengage entirely. True commitment is rare.

When OKRs are handed down instead of co-created, they lose their power. Rather than driving focus and adaptation, they become static artifacts—another checkbox in a quarterly ritual.

This isn’t the only way it can go. I’ve worked with teams that broke the pattern. Not by waiting for someone to hand them better goals—but by stepping up, defining their own, and owning the outcomes.

These teams didn’t treat OKRs like checklists or dashboards. They made them part of how they think, plan, and deliver every day.

High performing teams own the outcome

At ThoughtWorks, I facilitated hundreds of Lean Inceptions with cross-functional teams—developers, designers, product managers, and analysts. Each session pulsed with energy as people collaborated, shared ideas, and challenged assumptions.

In the highest-performing teams, however, something stood out. They didn’t just talk about features or delivery dates; they could clearly answer four key questions:

• What is the organization's strategic goal?
• What part of this strategy is relevant to us?
• What can we really move this quarter?
• How will we know we’re making progress?

These answers weren’t vague. They were specific and grounded. As a result, these teams connected their daily work to broader outcomes—and it showed. Their decisions were sharper, their priorities clearer, and their code delivered real results.

This shift—from executing tasks to pursuing purpose—changed everything. That’s where Team OKRs live: in high-performing teams that connect their goals to real outcomes. But a Team OKR is never a standalone exercise. It’s a bridge—helping teams deliver on the organization’s strategy while staying grounded in what they can influence and achieve together.

Bridging the Gap: Strategy and Team OKRs

Team autonomy doesn’t have to mean isolation, and strategic alignment doesn’t require command and control. Yet in many organizations, these two ideas often clash.

Leadership sets strategic priorities and expects teams to “align.” Teams, meanwhile, define OKRs they believe matter—but these don’t always map to the bigger picture. The result is misalignment, frustration, and wasted energy.

Great teams and great leaders bridge that gap by meeting in the middle. Strategy provides direction; Team OKRs create commitment.

This isn’t a cascade. It’s a conversation.

Figure 1: Top-down OKR & a common pitfall: OKRs defined at the top, broken into parts, and pushed down.

In high-performing environments, leadership shares intent—the challenges to solve, the opportunities to seize, the metrics to move. Teams listen, reflect, and define what they will own. As one team might frame it:

“Based on what we know and can influence, here’s what we believe we can achieve—and how we’ll measure progress.”

Here, ownership isn’t assigned; it’s assumed. Team OKRs enable not just strategic compliance but strategic contribution.

Figure 2: Alignment Over Cascading: The shift from cascading goals to collaborative alignment around strategic objectives.

What Makes Team OKRs Different

Team OKRs aren’t assigned, nor are they dropped into trackers by leadership. They’re assumed—created by the team, for the team.

This shift matters. It marks the difference between executing someone else’s priorities and committing to an outcome the team truly believes in.

With Team OKRs, the process looks different:

• The team defines the Objective, rooted in the strategic context. It’s not just a fancy slogan—it’s a clear and meaningful statement of what the team wants to achieve and why it matters.
• The team identifies Key Results—clear signs of progress that show real, measurable change. A Key Result often isn’t a KPI itself, but a movement in a KPI. It’s about direction and impact, not just numbers.
• The team commits to the outcome, not just doing tasks. They take real ownership, stay flexible, and focus on what truly brings value.

Leaders still lead, but their role changes. Instead of dictating the how, they clarify the why. They share direction, invite dialogue, and support teams in building real ownership.

This isn’t chaos. It’s alignment through trust.

From Strategy to Team OKR

Team OKRs don’t exist in isolation. They emerge from context—shaped by vision, guided by strategy, and grounded in reality.

Figure 3: How each layer nests into the next to form a clear chain from vision to execution.

This layered model shows how intent flows into action:

• Vision sets the long-term direction.
• Strategy defines current priorities.
• Team OKRs clarify what each team will own.
• Backlog connects intent to concrete work.

Each layer supports the next. When vision is unclear, strategy struggles to focus on what matters most next. Without a clear strategy, Team OKRs lose alignment and purpose. And when Team OKRs are vague, backlogs fill with scattered tasks rather than deliberate steps toward meaningful outcomes.

But when these layers align, teams can confidently translate high-level intent into focused, meaningful action.

From Direction to Definition: Key Conversations

Figure 4: The flow of structured conversations that transform strategy into work.

Alignment doesn’t happen in a single meeting; it evolves through a rhythm of structured conversations. This timeline illustrates how strategy becomes meaningful team action:

• Strategic Alignment Workshop: Leadership shares intent, not deliverables.
• Team OKR Planning Workshop: Teams reflect and define what they’ll pursue.
• From Goals to Work: OKRs flow into backlog items and initiatives.

This isn’t a rigid cascade. It’s a rhythm of dialogue and iteration, building alignment without sacrificing autonomy.

A Real Example: From Strategy to Commitment

I’ve worked with many large organizations, and I get it: leadership needs structure, a steady rhythm, and alignment across business units. Strategic OKRs can be incredibly powerful when used the right way.

Here’s how one large Brazilian financial institution created a simple yet effective way to connect strategy and execution.

Figure 5: From Strategy to Team OKRs: Yearly Planning and Quarterly Execution

Align Up. Align Across: Building Strategic Alignment Without Losing Team Autonomy

When I talk about alignment in large organizations, I don’t just mean aligning up to leadership’s strategy. That’s only half the story. The other half—and often the trickier one—is aligning across peer teams. Both dimensions are essential for making Team OKRs work at scale.

This is what I call vertical and horizontal alignment.

• Vertical alignment connects a team’s OKRs to the organization’s strategic goals (some people call this connecting tactical OKRs to strategic OKRs). It answers a critical question: “How does our work contribute to the bigger picture?”
• Horizontal alignment ensures that teams working in the same business unit—or across units—coordinate and collaborate effectively. It asks: How do we support each other to reach shared outcomes?

Think of a large business unit like a fleet of ships. Each team (or “ship”) has its own captain and crew, charting their course. But they’re not navigating alone. They’re moving together toward the same North Star. That’s the essence of horizontal alignment.

Each team chases its own Team OKR, tailored to its expertise and sphere of influence. But their efforts are interconnected—like gears in a machine. The magic happened in how they adjust to each other’s progress in real time, keeping the larger objective in sight.

This is alignment without rigidity. Teams still owned their OKRs and have autonomy over how they contribute. But they aren’t working in silos; they are navigating together.

Figure 6: Multiple teams contributing to a shared strategic objective, each with their own Team OKRs complementing one another

So how do teams keep alignment alive—without losing autonomy? This is where the Team OKR Cycle helps. It’s a simple rhythm that supports focus, collaboration, and adaptability.

The Team OKR Cycle

To help teams put this into practice, I recommend a lightweight, repeatable cycle. It keeps teams focused, aligned, and able to adapt as conditions change.

The Team OKR Cycle revolves around three key moments:

• Team OKR Planning (typically quarterly): A moment for alignment. The team connects with leadership, understands the strategic context, and defines its OKRs—clarifying what they want to achieve and how they’ll measure progress.
• Team OKR Check-in (weekly): A lightweight sync led by the team. They review key results, discuss progress, identify blockers, and adjust course as needed—catching issues before they derail momentum.
• Team OKR Retrospective (mid-cycle and end): A reflection point where the team looks back not just at delivery, but at impact. These retrospectives help refine both intent and execution for future cycles.

This rhythm transforms OKRs from a one-time planning exercise into a living system—a continuous loop of alignment and adaptation.

Figure 7: A typical Team OKR cycle

What Sets Great Teams Apart

The difference isn’t in the process or the tool. It’s in the mindset.

Teams that own their OKRs don’t just align with strategy—they shape it. They don’t just deliver outputs—they deliver outcomes.

That’s what makes them stand out. And that’s what makes Team OKRs work.